This was the perfect start to a Saturday morning! Frankly,
if every morning started with La La Land, the world would be a better place.
I don’t get on with musicals, but this hooked me if not from
the opening of the first scene, then certainly the first angry exchange between
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
There are others actors in this film, but the film really
belongs to Stone. Yes, Gosling adds singing and dancing to his brooding film
repertoire, but this is Stone’s moment. So far she’s got two Golden Globe noms,
one BAFTA and one Oscar, but this will send her into the stratosphere. Indeed
Screen US editor Jeremy Kay had this to say in his recent awards season previewpiece:
“This is an ‘Audrey Hepburn’ moment for Stone – just as Silver Linings
Playbook was for Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence – and voters will fall in
love with her as the season progresses.”
And he’s damn right! In films like Zombieland, Easy A and
Birdman, the cameras fell in love with her, and while La La Land doesn’t offer
a stand-out scene like her harrowing critique of her father in Birdman, it does
allow her to be front and centre for the vast majority of the film and shows
her maturing, reeling her usual fire in a little to allow for some more depth.
Part of that is due to Damien Chazelle’s script and
direction. While nominally a boy-meets-girl love story (that absolutely works
thanks to the real spark between the two leads), the film’s real focus is on
chasing dreams and what happens when you realise them. There is a bitter
sweetness at the film’s core that lifts it above the obvious rom-com, which left
me a bit of a blubbery mess at the end. I am, if nothing else, a romantic at
heart.
If you have an ounce of romance in you, you will fall in
love with this too.
Score: 10/10
UK release date: 13 January 2017
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